Has the city centre lost its charm?

For a City of only 400k its remarkable for its amenities.

Arcades are lovely.

The new shopping centres are manufacture type nice I guess ?

The two main streets have suffered, as most have from the decline of high street retail ,(that's all if our fault)

Met an Aussue at the Ashes , he just couldn't get the number of stadiums and arenas we have .

We got a castle and gargoyles.

We got wonderful parks that stretch for miles .


We have a bay .

Tram system would nail it (I'd congestion charge cars to pay for it.)

Pubs have lost thier identify, though .

Music venues not great

Think we have sold out to the corporate chains (pity we hadn't copied the Bristol independence model )

However , I would struggle to live anywhere else.

I love my City.

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Originally Posted by splott parker

And the pubs have reasonable prices, you can still get a pint for £2 in town, that’s very rare in many other UK cities.

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Can't get a pint for £2 in Porthcawl. :angry:

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Originally Posted by NYCBlue

No charm? It's always had the arcades, loads of pubs, a huge rugby stadium, a compact shopping area, the museum and gardens and a giant ****ing castle. All within one square mile. What more do you want?

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Have to agree with this. Mrs Monk (a Londoner) loves shopping in Cardiff becasue everything is right where you need it. She also regularly praises the shop staff who are very polite and helpful, compared with the shop staff in London who seem to be affronted that a customer should actually want them to help.

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Originally Posted by life on mars

We got a castle and gargoyles.

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Bit of pedantry here, sorry.

We have a castle, but no gargoyles that I know of.
The animals on the castle walls are called "grotesques".
They're only gargoyles if they're part of the roof drainage, and spout water when it's raining.
And we all know that it never rains in Cardiff.

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Originally Posted by Organ Morgan.

For me the city centre lost its charm when The Albert, and its piano, on St Mary Street became something else, another characterless, poncy monstrosity just as The Duke of Wellington on one end of Chippy Lane did years before. The long gone Glendower and Custom House were full of great local eccentrics with backgrounds from all over the globe.

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You ruined the whole post with two words😢😢😢🤪🤪

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Originally Posted by life on mars

For a City of only 400k its remarkable for its amenities.

Arcades are lovely.

The new shopping centres are manufacture type nice I guess ?

The two main streets have suffered, as most have from the decline of high street retail ,(that's all if our fault)

Met an Aussue at the Ashes , he just couldn't get the number of stadiums and arenas we have .

We got a castle and gargoyles.

We got wonderful parks that stretch for miles .


We have a bay .

Tram system would nail it (I'd congestion charge cars to pay for it.)

Pubs have lost thier identify, though .

Music venues not great

Think we have sold out to the corporate chains (pity we hadn't copied the Bristol independence model )

However , I would struggle to live anywhere else.

I love my City.

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Totally agree. Cardiff is very lucky with its general amenities as you mention, but the Council and to a degree the Assembly are doing their best to ruin the City.

You mentioned Bristol and we are really bad in comparison.

We just have to look at the proposals for the old Gaiety cinema on City Road. A stunning building that is going to be bulldozed, only to be replaced by a soulless, homogenized block of student flats.

In comparison, I went to the Everyman cinema on Whiteladies Road in Bristol and it's one of the best I've visited. It was converted from the old run down Whiteladies cinema.

It's such a stark contrast and Cardiff's lack of foresight means that so much of our past will be lost forever, instead of sensitive and appropriate conversions to create a nicer future.

Cardiff is full of corporates and global companies, like Starbucks and Costa.

I refuse to use them, as wherever possible I use independents.

I would rather help keep them in business and get the personal service from them, than some faceless company that doesn't pay a fair amount of taxes.

It's not a level playing field and Government need to address the tax side of things and Councils need to take responsibility to return to the previous levels of independents, as opposed to having the likes of Tesco extras and starbucks everywhere.

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Originally Posted by bobh

Bit of pedantry here, sorry.

We have a castle, but no gargoyles that I know of.
The animals on the castle walls are called "grotesques".
They're only gargoyles if they're part of the roof drainage, and spout water when it's raining.
And we all know that it never rains in Cardiff.

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They're not gargoyles but they're not grotesques either.

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Originally Posted by barrybloo

Quite simply a wonderful city, as previous posters have mentioned a world class stadium a castle, a beautiful civic centre, loads of pubs and restaurants, arcades all within minutes walk of each other. 10 minutes to cardiff bay with all it's charms.
What more can you want?
Just ask anybody coming to cardiff for the first time for a match concert etc.

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Absolutely! :thumbup:

I left Cardiff 16 years ago and visited the city last March, the first time I'd been home in more than 10 years. I wasn't disappointed.. beautiful city, very friendly staff wherever I went ( perhaps I took that for granted when I lived there), a civic centre to match anything in the country, bars galore and THAT stadium..

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Originally Posted by Robin Friday's Ghost

They're not gargoyles but they're not grotesques either.

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You're right, they're not grotesques. Aren't they just a collection of animals.. bears, monkeys, pelicans, wolves etc?

Womanby Street is great as well

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Originally Posted by NYCBlue

No charm? It's always had the arcades, loads of pubs, a huge rugby stadium, a compact shopping area, the museum and gardens and a giant ****ing castle. All within one square mile. What more do you want?

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Originally Posted by light up the darkness

Sydney opera house....herds of wildebeest etc

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Originally Posted by splott parker

And the pubs have reasonable prices, you can still get a pint for £2 in town, that’s very rare in many other UK cities.

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I need to shop around. Whenever I seem to go into town these days I'm paying 4 quid + for watered down lager.

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Originally Posted by Trigger

I need to shop around. Whenever I seem to go into town these days I'm paying 4 quid + for watered down lager.

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Rummer, Borough, Live Lounge + most of the gay bars, are as cheap as chips (not used the gay bars myself as yet, but others swear by them)

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Originally Posted by NYCBlue

That's exactly what I was thinking when I when I was typing that.

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:thumbup: can’t beat a good Basil reference

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Originally Posted by BLUETIT

Rummer, Borough, Live Lounge + most of the gay bars, are as cheap as chips (not used the gay bars myself as yet, but others swear by them)

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I'm sure that when I visited the Queen's Vaults, one afternoon in March of this year, I paid just under 2 quid for a pint.

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Originally Posted by Rock_Flock_of_Five

I'm sure that when I visited the Queen's Vaults, one afternoon in March of this year, I paid just under 2 quid for a pint.

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Haven’t been in there for about 18 months, unfortunately had 2 terrible meals in there and they didn’t give a toss

Mrs won’t go there again

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Originally Posted by Trigger

I need to shop around. Whenever I seem to go into town these days I'm paying 4 quid + for watered down lager.

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You do need to shop around! £4 a pint😱😱😱 Away games always make me appreciate Cardiff’s prices. We’re spoilt for choice in our city centre as opposed to a lot of others.

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Originally Posted by Rock_Flock_of_Five

I'm sure that when I visited the Queen's Vaults, one afternoon in March of this year, I paid just under 2 quid for a pint.

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Avoid BALES BAR, dear shit in there :wave:

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Originally Posted by NYCBlue

No charm? It's always had the arcades, loads of pubs, a huge rugby stadium, a compact shopping area, the museum and gardens and a giant ****ing castle. All within one square mile. What more do you want?

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This.

very occasionally I work from my company's cardiff office, which is in town. Every time I do, I notice just how much there is in the city centre and how easy it is to get a lot done in the space of a lunch hour. It's great.

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Originally Posted by splott parker

You ruined the whole post with two words😢😢😢🤪🤪

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:thumbup:

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Originally Posted by JDerrida

Totally agree. Cardiff is very lucky with its general amenities as you mention, but the Council and to a degree the Assembly are doing their best to ruin the City.

You mentioned Bristol and we are really bad in comparison.

We just have to look at the proposals for the old Gaiety cinema on City Road. A stunning building that is going to be bulldozed, only to be replaced by a soulless, homogenized block of student flats.

In comparison, I went to the Everyman cinema on Whiteladies Road in Bristol and it's one of the best I've visited. It was converted from the old run down Whiteladies cinema.

It's such a stark contrast and Cardiff's lack of foresight means that so much of our past will be lost forever, instead of sensitive and appropriate conversions to create a nicer future.

Cardiff is full of corporates and global companies, like Starbucks and Costa.

I refuse to use them, as wherever possible I use independents.

I would rather help keep them in business and get the personal service from them, than some faceless company that doesn't pay a fair amount of taxes.

It's not a level playing field and Government need to address the tax side of things and Councils need to take responsibility to return to the previous levels of independents, as opposed to having the likes of Tesco extras and starbucks everywhere.

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I lived in Bristol for about 5 years recently, I always found the centre really depressing and would avoid it and it’s chain bars as much as possible. It gets nicer towards park street and Clifton but there is still plenty if chains up that way. Only when you get to Clifton village are the places so small only independents will take them anyway.....if cardiff developed a tram system and had more cycle lanes it would be up there. The council needs to decrease rates for independents aswell to encourage more of them in the sort of areas they would start up. Corporates can afford it, we can’t alllow them to take over completely

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Originally Posted by Taunton Blue Genie

I'm on a three day course in Newport but decided to stay overnight in Cardiff city centre. After today's session in Nyoops I got back to the hotel an hour before the shops closed and walked my colleague around the arcades, the market and St Mary Street to give her a feel of the place.
I still like to old market but everywhere else seems to dominated by gentrified shops and cafés (in the case of the arcades) and national restaurant/bar chains elsewhere.
Call me an old out-of-touch curmudgeon but I feel that the place has lost a lot of charm and character.
Yours,
TBG
Wearing a tin foil hat and eating powdered egg.
P. S. Discovering the stuffed bear in the tobacconist's (that I remember from my childhood) was a treat!

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When i was growing up back in the eighties, the centre was dirty and stunk of piss. I'm not sure that Cardiff has ever possessed 'Charm' Are Port Cities Charming? I don't like all of the starbucks shit, although it's still possible to bypass that stuff, there are plenty of independents, we even have the oldest record shop in the UK whose owner rightly believes that Morrissey is a massive bellend Racist if you've not heard. In 'Oh Cardiff, Nothing to answer for'

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Originally Posted by bobh

Bit of pedantry here, sorry.

We have a castle, but no gargoyles that I know of.
The animals on the castle walls are called "grotesques".
They're only gargoyles if they're part of the roof drainage, and spout water when it's raining.
And we all know that it never rains in Cardiff.

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https://www.google.com/search?q=card...w=1280&bih=608

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Originally Posted by Rock_Flock_of_Five

I'm sure that when I visited the Queen's Vaults, one afternoon in March of this year, I paid just under 2 quid for a pint.

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Argh , you were the chap the barmaid was screaming after ,scared me too death .

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Originally Posted by Robin Friday's Ghost

They're not gargoyles but they're not grotesques either.

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Did you know 99% of Gargoyles Look Like Bob Todd ( fact )

You know what we’re missing in Cardiff?
An aquarium/zoo close - and I don’t mean folly farm